Morning cues: Nifty set to rally once again?

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US markets rallied yesterday, with the Dow and Nasdaq hitting multi-year highs on robust economic data and reports suggesting that the ECB would agree to exchange their Greek bonds for new ones. The Dow rose by about a percent, its highest closing level since May 2008 and the Nasdaq logged its best gains since December 2000. The S&P 500 meanwhile gained 1% finishing at its highest level in about nine months. On the back of the exuberance in the US, European markets trimmed losses to end flat.

Back home, it was a choppy session for the Indian market, with the Nifty finally managing to close above 5,500 after an intra-day dip.

Asian markets started off on a strong wicket on signs that euro zone officials would approve a long-awaited bailout for Greece to avoid any disorderly default.

In the commodities space, Brent crude prices surge to eight-month highs above 120 dollars on worries about supply from Iran and from the North Sea, where output was expected to dip next month. Euro reversed losses against the dollar, and gold remained flat on Greek optimism.

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Global cues

Weekly jobless claims in the US fell to a four year low of 348,000, lower than what the street estimated. The US consumer price index for January is expected to come out today, and consensus data indicates an uptick.

Onto the latest from Greece Ė there are signs that euro zone officials would soon approve a long-awaited bailout for Greece to reduce the risk of a disorderly default. Germany has reportedly abandoned the idea to hold back some bailout cash to ensure that Greece complies with reforms

The ECB has moved to protect itself from having to take any haircut on its roughly 50 billion euro worth of Greek bond holdings by swapping them for new issues. Sources say that the new bonds would have the same feature as the existing ones. However, the ECB said itís open to foregoing any profits on the bonds.

Stocks in news

The aviation space is in focus this morning. Finance ministry sources say they will not intervene on Jet Airways' request seeking Rs 550 crore unsecured loans. Meanwhile, Kingfisher Airlines and Air India are scheduled to meet lenders on the reworked restructuring package.

The coal secretary has said that they are yet to work out coal import estimates, adding that the Prime Minister's Office has assured Coal India of faster approvals. However, the company will not absorb prices of imported coal.

CNBC-TV18 learns valuations are at the heart of the latest dispute between Telenor and its Indian partner Unitech. Yesterday, Telenor said itís looking for a new JV partner and sent Unitech a notice to recover its India investments. Unitech sources claim Telenor had offered to buy out its 32.75% stake, but at a very cheap price. Unitech is willing to exit but at the right price.

Allahabad Bank to consider a share issue on preferential basis to the government on February 22.